Lindsey Altom
Bio
For me, writing runs in the blood. I've written songs, poems and short stories ever since I was a little girl. I mostly like to write about my life experiences mixed with a little fiction or just things that come off the top of my head!
Stories (96)
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Aspiration Point Coven
"Beneath this hallowed moon, in this sacred place, we set this protection over blood of our blood, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. We call upon our higher power and the ancestors of those women before us for this protection for we know that sorrow wants comfort, hate comes undone with love, hearts that are hurt mend with time but true love is never forgotten. Turmoil creates havoc and mayhem but ultimately yearns for peace abounding. With all this comes understanding untold...we shall live life forever protected by this coven, our sisters, bound together, we are family. Never fearing this world, so mote it be."
By Lindsey Altom2 years ago in Fiction
How Things Went From Wonderful to Terrifying.... Content Warning.
There is something you should know especially if you are reading this and questioning yourself and your relationship....it wasn't always awful and terrifying with Wade. As a matter of fact, most of the time I thought I was the most blessed girl in the world. I mean we did have quite a lot in common although not quite as much as I had originally been told, he did tell me he loved me and that I was beautiful every day, we also had similar ideas when it came to dates and what was fun as we would ride down the backroads with the windows down, hair blowing in the wind, hands and arms stuck out the window as if we could fly. We would spend hours upon hours talking about our dreams and wants and our goals in life. Wade had a way of making me feel as if I was his whole world and that was all I had ever wanted and those dark times? Well, that was my fault partly right? I mean I was a lot to handle and I knew that. It took a long time for me to realize that the give and take, tug and pull he was giving me was highly toxic and forming a deadly bond. Wade was keeping me sick, sick for him and I couldn't even see it. Even though I more than once begged Wade to just stab me already, I told him if that would make the abuse stop(the verbal, mental and emotional abuse) and it would get his anger out to just do it already! He just gave me a sickly smile as he said he would never do such a thing. I also once told Wade that I felt when I spoke to him that I was walking on eggshells and he turned it around on me by telling me that because I was such an emotional person and cried over most everything he said he felt the same way. Words...they were such fragile tangible things now...much like glass and if I didn't handle it with the utmost care the words would surely slip and cut me. Shortly after we got back together and even dismissed our divorce Wade decided upon the advisement of my pastor and numerous conversations between the both of us that it would be best if he quit his current job as it was a very toxic environment and not conducive to his trying to quit the alcohol/drug addiction he was trying to beat. So, after a very dramatic ending Wade left that job and decided to go to school for something he'd wanted to do for a long time which was gunsmithing. I was fully supportive of this and excited for him to start this new chapter. However, Wade would have to find a way to support us all while he went to school as my job paid most of the bills but not all and certainly could not support a family of 6. This is a conversation that Wade and I would end up having on several different occasions. Wade began to expect me to take care of everything financially and school became his top priority. I would tell him that I didn't have the funds to pay a certain bill or buy groceries and his response would be either, "Don't worry. I'll take care of it." (but that never happened), if brought up more than once it was "Well, what the fudge(to put it nicely) do you expect me to do about it?!" or "There's food in there. Just go look." but there was little more than enough to make a peanut butter sandwich and certainly not enough to feed a family of 6. I once stood in front of Wade in our carport and told him after I'd already had a long day at work, "No, I can't go buy you cigarettes' because I have to use this money to buy supper for us." Suddenly, he leapt from his chair and his anger filled the entirety of the space around us as he yelled and berated me I knew I'd do anything he wanted just to get out of there. I quickly got back into my car and went to get the cigarettes. He told me later that night that what had set him off was that I had told him No and that I should've known better and to word it differently next time. Wade did keep a variety of jobs throughout this time but he job hopped so frequently that I often lost track of what job he was at at that present time. At first, he wanted to be a security guard but then that ended because his truck started having mechanical issues and instead of trying to find a solution he quit the job, then it was a variety of gas station jobs and perhaps a couple of other things mixed in too. All of these jobs were fine but Wade found a reason to quit every single one of them and every time without a two week notice which would leave us without a paycheck from him for weeks at a time. He put us all in a very tight predicament financially and expected me to pick up the slack. This was very triggering for me as my ex husband had done the same thing to me at one point and although I tried to explain this to Wade and make a better financial game plan he just seemed indifferent and honestly seemed to care less. I even offered to get a 2nd job to help get us through "these hard times". I put it as non judgmental as possible and I was greeted with a "No woman of mine will have 2 darn jobs!" At that point, I started Doordashing and using the Uber app to make some money despite what Wade said so we could eat supper and so I could get gas money to go back and forth to work. If I could feed all of the children then I did but if I couldn't then I just fed myself and my two birth children. I wanted to be able to feed all 4 children but I often times couldn't afford it. Wade started to pull away and it began to be clear that the beginning of the end had started. The abuse picked up....My son was in band at that point and had started marching band and it was football season so often times myself and Aliza would wait in various places in town if Doordash wasn't busy for hours just sitting in the car because we were both too scared to go home. I would wait until I could pick my son up then we would go home. I would tell the children to lock their bedroom doors. When we had come back from my father's my son's bedroom had been ransacked and things had been stolen. It had been blamed on one of LJ's friends and later LJ took responsibility but he wasn't punished because "he was just getting his anger out". He had also destroyed a picture of myself and my two best friends "sisters" from our vacation earlier that year by ripping my face out of the picture. It was one of those old timey pictures you get dressed up for and cost an arm and a leg. Again, he was "just angry." I can't tell you how many nights I had to tell Aliza to grab some toys really fast so we could go because I knew Wade was about to explode and I didn't want to be around or for her to be around for it. Eventually, I hit my breaking point. On the night of September 1, 2022 Wade was raging about how I'd pushed and pushed and pushed, how I just wouldn't quit and now I get this side of him. How I've made this side of him come out because I decided I wanted this to happen...all whilst he was slamming things and shaking furniture in our bedroom. I was sitting on our bed petrified but this time I thought, "I'm recording this, at least the sound, so others can hear it and I can know for sure I'm not crazy and I can know that this is for sure abuse." So, quietly, meekly, I slipped my phone under the covers and pressed record. In total, I got 9 minutes of verbal, emotional and mental abuse recorded that night. At that point, LJ had moved back in with his mother and Wade blamed me. He had me read a text that was from NJ that said that he too was wanting to move out. Wade explained that he wasn't letting me read this to "start anything" but then proceeded to tell me that I had already pushed one of his children out and was about to push another. He then told me that he was going to tell me what I was, that I was "bipolar as fudge, today happy and cool and the next day your sarcastic and being an butthole, your sarcastic, your demeaning, your condescending, you are the worst of the worst, you are like my mom for God's sakes...make me think you love me then you play head games with everyone of us...." He constantly said that I didn't give NJ and LJ enough attention and love even though I tried so hard to be there for them. I probably was grouchy sometimes because the boys after a time never gave me any respect. They broke anything nice that I ever brought into the house, they argued with me constantly and Wade never once backed me up.
By Lindsey Altom2 years ago in Chapters
Dearest Mother,.... Content Warning.
Dearest Mother, I can't do this anymore. I can't keep pretending that you want me and I want you... the truth is that I needed you yes but I do not want you. There was a time, yes there was a time where I both wanted and needed you but then I grew. I grew to learn that I could love myself and I learned that without you. Let's be honest shall we? For once, can you give me this one small token? You never wanted me. Not really. You gave me life and for that, I am grateful. It's been a wild ride but one I'm glad I was given the opportunity to have but I was the bastard child. I am the bastard child; conceived in the dark of night when you should've been in your bedroom sleeping like a good teenage girl but you weren't and that I've always felt was my fault. I'm not sure how but I wasn't meant to be conceived by you at just 15 years of age and born when you had just turned 16 a few short months ago. I stole your childhood. I'm told when I was a baby/toddler we were besties but I think you had hopes that I could be your mini me. When my father and you divorced when I was just 3, you started to realize I was more like my daddy. I favored him in looks too with my brown hair and brown eyes versus your blond hair and hazel eyes that was nothing like you. In school, I struggled and couldn't make the straight A's you had made in school. I made B's, C's and an occasional A. You had me stay up until midnight some nights because you said I was staying up until I got it right. I'm sorry I was not good enough and didn't understand. Finally, when I was 11 you and my step father had my little sister Mikayla and I thought maybe the pressure would be off me and I wouldn't have to be so perfect. You'd be busy with her. I was wrong. I just got another job added to my list; I then had to be the perfect older sister/substitute mother. I changed diapers, fed her bottles, bathed her every night, I knew she had acid reflux and could projectile vomit across a room if not burped properly or given the bottle properly and sometimes even still, I dressed her and as she grew I fed her supper and played with her. You had headaches/migraines quite frequently so often times I'd get home from school and immediately be handed Mikayla so you could go lay down. If I had homework I had to try to do that while watching my little sister. I loved her so much but I did resent her. How could I not? She could do no wrong in your eyes and I...I could do nothing but wrong. When I was 13 you and my step father became pregnant again and Adeline was born. I now was responsible for two beautiful little girls. Adeline had such beautiful bouncy blond curls and she loved to laugh all the time and Mikayla had to be entertained all the time and loved to be into everything. They were a mess and they were my babies but they don't remember those years now. It's sad really. They were your showcase children and still are even all these years later. Do you know that if I run into people that know you and they find out your my mother some do not even know I am your child? They know of Mikayla and Adeline but they know nothing of me. Your dark haired cast away daughter...can you tell me why that is? No, probably not. Honesty about these things has never been your strong suit. Instead, you like to deny and hide and cover things up. It seems your version of things always differs from mine too. Why is that mother? Do you know how many years I spent crying my eyes out because I tried to please you and somehow fell short? I used to clean the house every Thursday when I was teenager because that was part of my chores and I had to clean everything from top to bottom-bathrooms, dusting, sweeping, mopping, dishes and vacuuming. Every Thursday you'd come home and you'd take your finger as you swiped it across the bookcase or the entertainment center and you'd look at your finger and say, "Not good enough. I still see dust." You'd look at the floors and the toilet and ask me things like how on earth did I think that was clean? Was I dumb? We fought constantly and it seemed more than just your average teenage daughter and mother fights or for that matter daughter/mother fights. I remember that if I knew you were angry before we got in a car that I would sit behind you as far away as I could because if we got into an argument and I said something you didn't like you would just start slapping and you didn't care what you hit. You would hit my arms, legs, sides, face...it didn't matter to you. I remember one time we were arguing and you grabbed my arm and shoved me into my closet. I thought to myself, " I wonder if that will leave a bruise? I could call DCS"... but I was scared to be separated from my little sisters. Then there was the one time that I got up the guts to say to you what I was actually feeling. We were arguing in the kitchen each facing the other in the doorway as I was headed to my room and I screamed at you those words I'd been harboring deep, deep in my heart, "I HATE YOU!" I then felt a sharp slap across my face as you screamed "Go to your room and don't you DARE EVER tell me that again!" It felt so good to get it out though that the pain from that slap was almost worth it. At least now you knew the truth. I spent so many days and nights hugging my Bible and my baby blanket crying my eyes out wishing I were dead. Wishing you had went through with that abortion all those years ago...Did you know that when I was 12 or 13 (I can't remember the exact age) I tried to kill myself? I was doing the dishes and no one else was home for once. There was a butcher knife that called my name, I looked into it's reflection so inviting that it beckoned to me. I picked it up, put it to wrist, thought "If I could just hit the main vein then I could just bleed out and I'll be dead before they get back then all this pain will be over." I pressed down but couldn't bring myself to actually press hard enough to draw blood, I was too scared. Too scared to live and too scared to die. I was cursed I felt. I told no one until I met and fell in love with Jay shortly after that. Over the years, you showed where your priorities lied. The only time you wanted to be my mother or my children's grandmother was and is when it makes you look good. When you can put it on social media or take credit for being there for us in our time of crisis or need. It is for nothing but your gain. Other people in my life have had to step in where your place should've been to step up for you and then as if you have the gall to do so you get mad at those people such as grandma for simply stepping up for me and being reliable when you were not. I can't tell you how many times that woman and my daddy have heard me cry out why? Why am I not good enough for you? Don't answer that because I no longer care. I started therapy in 2020 all due to two separate incidents that had to do with you and my sisters. You turned them against me too. They never had time for me after I moved out and soon they were just your mini me's which was what you had wanted all along but couldn't get out of me. In 2020, at Mikayla's wedding I was conveniently left out of virtually everything. Adeline was asked to be a bridesmaid, the maid of honor in fact and despite the fact that there were I believe 7 bridesmaids I wasn't asked to be one or to have any part in the wedding party. Aliza, my little girl, was asked to be the flower girl but it was quite frowned on that she's quite shy and we didn't know if she would make it down the aisle. In the end, she did but started to cry because she saw grandma and you crying and she didn't understand why. There was no mention of me or pictures hardly anywhere even though there were plenty of Adeline and Mikayla. We didn't even have a clear place to sit, eventually placed sort of off to the side in a bit of a corner. There was a slideshow that did me in at the end. It showed numerous family pictures of Mikayla growing up with Adeline and you and my step dad and various family members. Guess who had 3 pictures total in the whole slideshow? Yeah...I counted. I ran to the bathroom in tears. I felt like a 3rd wheel the whole wedding. Some of Mikayla's friends ratted me out to you that I had ran to the bathroom crying because even though you were just a table or two over you didn't notice. I lied and said I was crying because I was so happy for Mikayla. I didn't want to make it about me and also I knew you wouldn't understand. Also, you asked grandma to ask me about it days later. That's another thing you do that I can't stand. You never come to me! Your daughter! You essentially tell grandma to get her "daughter" under control or find out what's wrong with me now. I know you'll say that I don't come to you either and that's because I used to but after I realized how little you care I gave up on that. I chose to stay silent. Also, after my step dad had a stroke you refused to let me step up and help you. It was you, Mikayla and Adeline going through this hardship. I was looked over, tossed aside. I tried to be there for you all even dad and it was as if I was not welcome. I tried to show my love and help make decisions and I felt like everything I said was just blocked out. No, you abandoned me a long time ago mother and the only thing I can figure I've really done is be born. Am I angry? Yes, I am. Do you know the countless times I've questioned who could love someone like me who is clearly so unlovable because her own mother doesn't love her? Tell me I'm wrong...I dare you. I will say this though I've come to be less angry than I was in the past. I'm mostly numb now and indifferent. I've come to realize that it's not my responsibility to win your love so speak. It is only my responsibility to love me and I choose to love me because for some reason God loves me and He loved me enough to allow me to be born and live here on this blessed Earth. And today, mother, that's enough for me and if you were to get sick or need me I'd be there. However, I'm not going to allow you to tear me down anymore. Those actions you used to do and still do sometimes I refuse to allow to have control over me. Those words of yours I used to hear in my head every day I hear less and less now as I've replaced them with nice things I tell myself instead. I climbed out on my own see, I did that. You gave birth to a princess of God mother.
By Lindsey Altom2 years ago in Families
How Things Went From Wonderful to Terrifying.... Content Warning.
"I'm not scared of you." I told Wade but I was really speaking to the demon or demons I thought possibly lurked inside my husband. I knew I had to leave but I felt it important to show him no fear, I thought that would help me even though it was one of the biggest lies I'd ever told. In truth, I was petrified. The days leading up to mine and my two birth children's moving out of our home was frantic and absolutely terrifying. I called an attorney for advice along with asking the attorneys I worked with for advice, I put a plan in place with my father to come and pack a few things quickly in the early morning which would allow us to get out of the house before Wade got home from work and I packed a "go bag" in case we needed to leave in the middle of the night which consisted of mine and my children's birth certificates and social security cards. I had tried everything I could think of to not let it get to this point. After I saw the black eyes I begged Wade to go to therapy with me. He argued with me and argued saying that therapy wasn't what we needed and we were fine. He was fine. I told him I wasn't fine and that if he couldn't do this for me then I didn't see us making it. He told me not to threaten him and how dare I make ultimatums to him?! Reluctantly though he agreed but with stipulations; it could not be a pastor, he didn't want a male therapist and it had to work with his schedule. For a whole month, myself and a local therapist tried to work with his schedule as we made appointment after appointment that would hopefully accommodate him but he kept making excuses as to why he couldn't come to the appointments. Finally, she looked at me and said, "You are more than welcome to keep coming and working on you but we can't work on your marriage without your partner. Now, you can either just tolerate this decision he's made and making or walk away if your not okay with this." I called my father. I knew what I was leaving behind and risking and it killed me. I was leaving my step children who I'd helped raise the past 6 years, my home which I could very well lose due to my abandonment of the home and I'd worked my whole adult life to get that home and possibly the majority of our possessions if Wade chose to take possession of the home. However, I knew that I would have myself and my children in a safe environment and that was what mattered the most. I was so scared at that time that it seemed like if I didn't get away right then and there someone might die. We pulled it off early one morning, I grabbed bare essentials and we left. As we left, LJ, my little buddy caught me going out the door and said "It's all gonna be okay." I hugged him and said, "Yeah..." and left crying my eyes out. While we resided at my father's it was both peaceful and full of stress. I was still being verbally abused by Wade on an almost daily basis. We were trying to work things out and finding a way to do that was not easy. He would text me and call me all hours of the day and night berating and belittling me. I was a piece of shit for leaving him and the boys, what sort of mother and/or wife does that, now he has all the bills to pay by himself although I did try to discuss at one point what each of us should pay, I had abandoned them and now he would never take me back....etc. He would get furious over the smallest of things and I wouldn't hear the end of it for hours. I learned after a while not to text back but that was so hard to do. I felt I needed to not only defend myself but calm him down if I could, if it was at all possible. I felt it was my responsibility to do so. I remember one day the power had went out at the house so Wade and the boys came to my father's to wash some clothes and I had researched a treatment center for addicts. I asked Wade if he'd call them. He flew off the handle at me because how dare I ask such a thing when they'd been without power all night and he was exhausted?! I was able to learn while living at my daddy's how to enforce better boundaries when it came to him and that day I told him he needed to leave. He did and claimed that we were through for good. We filed for divorce but there was still that trauma bond hanging on and Wade knew he still had his talons in me. I still cared what he thought, still did not want to make him upset, still longed for him, still spent every waking moment thinking of him and what I could do to help him. We eventually started getting intimate again and that's when he had me. I moved back to our family home in March of 2022 for one last try to our marriage. We had spent 5 months with my father and I was honestly dreading moving back in with Wade in some ways as were the children but he had promised to start going to see my pastor with me for marriage counseling as he did not like the previous therapist as he found her pushy and was convinced she had told me to leave him. For a time, things got slightly better. Wade tried to work on the things my pastor suggested we both work on and together we were becoming stronger and better but although we had a good foundation laid down to us by my then pastor that's hard to follow when you don't actually see anything wrong with your actions. Wade tried to put on a good show though. He even got baptized but the night before his baptism we got into an argument because he wanted to back out stating he was too tired to go to church. I tried to explain that the pastor would be getting the baptistry pool ready and he would need to tell him if that was the case and not just flake out the morning of and he got angry and stated that he would go through with it so we could appear "perfect and happy" just like I wanted. I told him that's not what I wanted, if he didn't feel the baptism in his heart then he didn't need to do it but he just needed to let the pastor know. He kept going on and on about things needing to look "perfect" for me. So, the next day, in front of our family and the congregation he got baptized. It was hard but I was trying so hard to make it work and we even dismissed our order for divorce. Then, the cloud of darkness got darker and suddenly the mask was off and the demons had come out to play and they weren't holding back this time.
By Lindsey Altom2 years ago in Chapters
A Time To Die...
She entered the sterile, brightly lit room in a rush. They'd told her to hurry, time was of the essence. He'd been in a bad way for a few months now, could this be it? He was all she had left in this world and she all he had. Everyone else had either passed away or left. Even his beautiful bride had passed years earlier from a sudden stroke. Ever since then, it had been he and I just chugging through life together. There he lay in that bed he'd laid in for at least a couple of weeks now. The hospital had been shuffling him between home and back there when he got bad again for at least six months. He was so small and so frail. He'd already been of a small stature but now he was even smaller having lost about 50 pounds, pounds he didn't need to lose in the first place. He'd been so strong her whole life but he was tired and she knew he was....heart troubles since the 90's and now with nothing and no one left but her a bout of pneumonia had gotten his lungs down too. He had fought hard but in the end his old lungs just couldn't seem to recover from the pneumonia. Now his whole body was just giving out on him. She looked at his thinning gray hair, the tired wrinkled face, his thin frame all the way down to his thin legs and arms which looked like little more than toothpicks now. His tired brown eyes found her worried brown eyes. He smiled weakly at her. The lights were much too harsh for the situation at hand but she didn't have time to worry with that, she could see he didn't have long left. Each breath was labored and weak. She sank into the chair beside his bed heavily; held his soft, frail hand and laid her head on his bed. No words were needed in this moment, no words would suffice. Not to mention, he'd always been a man of few words. He didn't see the point in mincing words and for that matter neither did she, only speaking what was needed. They had told each other they loved each other sure but it was mostly through actions. Being there for each other and after all, was that not what mattered the most? She lost track of how long she laid like that humming the old hymns she'd heard in church growing up with her grandfather. She could hear the clock ticking, she could see it getting darker outside the window, the beeps of the machines which most had been removed. It was all about comfort now. At some point, her grandfather put his hand on her head and then all of a sudden she heard a deep, rattling breath. She looked and saw the most peaceful look on a person's face she'd ever seen and then she heard the machines flatline, steady beeep, she took her hand and closed his eyes. Rest in peace and fly high... the doctors and nurses then flew through the door so she got up quickly and stepped back so they could do their job. There wasn't much to do however but pronounce him deceased considering there was a do not resuscitate order. They just disconnected the machines, called the funeral home and asked if she wanted more time with him. She said no, she'd had her time but as she turned to leave she could've sworn she saw the brightest glowing light shoot up into the ceiling. She smiled.
By Lindsey Altom2 years ago in Fiction
How Things Went From Wonderful to Terrifying... . Content Warning.
In the days and months leading up to me taking AJ and Rayne and leaving the house to go move in with my father quite a bit happened. It was as if a dark blanket wrapped itself around our once loving home and enveloped every corner of it. There was no escape from the foreboding, oppressive feeling and tensions within our home and it just kept getting stronger with each and every day. Of course these things take time and with domestic violence when your in it you don't wake up to the danger your in immediately or the incredibly toxic environment you have not only yourself in but your children. Wade always worked nights and we were all warned very sternly not to bother him at work unless it was an emergency and also we all knew better than to disturb his sleep during the day. It was difficult to keep the children quite during the day on the weekends when we were all home so sometimes I'd take them to the park or on a walk outside to just get them away for a bit. If Wade was woken up, we'd all get yelled at and especially me because even though he'd say he understood that I couldn't keep them quiet all the time you could tell by his reactions that he expected me to. When NJ and LJ moved in with us LJ wanted to start doing a sport as he'd always been very sports oriented. Wade complained and told him that he didn't think it was a good idea because he didn't know how LJ would get to the games and practices. I volunteered to do what I could when I could because I wanted the child to feel like he was a part of something in this new school he'd be going to and so he could make some friends. I told LJ to go ahead and sign up for his chosen sport which was basketball and that I'd make it work. Wade said since I had went behind his back with this in his mind I would be responsible for getting LJ to and from practice and the games even though the last of the conversation we'd had he'd said if we could sort out the details then he guessed it was okay. LJ's mother ended up taking him to some of the games and picking him up from practice a time or two but between myself and her we were the only ones that were ever there for LJ when it came to his basketball games. I tried to manage things as best I could while also trying to remember to take time out for myself and improving my own mental health and well being. I started a new church where I fell in love with the congregation and the pastor who spoke with such wisdom and knowledge that I was drawn to him in a way that I have not been to a pastor in a long time. I am one of those who considers myself in the way of religion a follower of Christ. That, I believe, is all you need to know and all you really need in life. God has gotten me through everything I've ever been though in my life and He certainly has helped me through this experience. I do not know how I would've seen through that dark cloud in my home without Him. I find that I do not remember a lot from that time period as my brain has blocked most of it out for my protection I suppose. I remember one morning in particular though this happened countless times, Wade stumbled downstairs still drunk from the night before or perhaps high I am not sure which and knocked over a chair from the dining room table as he rammed into the table itself. He fell to the floor. I remember LJ was in the room I believe and Rayne, I remember seeing the look of fear in their eyes as he got up, laughed it off and stumbled back upstairs. I remember once while giving Rayne a bath, Wade came in and got upset with me over something I cannot even remember what and proceeded to yell and scream at me and get in my face to the point I was backed into a corner in our bathroom. I remember running out of the room and to our bedroom hoping against hope that Rayne could avoid seeing us fighting because he wouldn't stop when I asked him to.... She later asked me why daddy was so mean to me sometimes? What do you say in a moment like that? I just said daddy gets angry and he doesn't know how to control himself. Once, Wade was having severe trouble with his blood pressure to the point I was afraid he was going to have a stroke just like my step dad did in 2020 so I made him get up and go to the ER. Wade acted horrible the whole trip, he was verbally abusive to the nurses and myself and although they got his BP down somewhat they weren't able to do much due to his ranting and raving. He told me I should've just left him in bed. From then on, I did. I thought to myself "If you would rather die in that bed then I'll let you. It's one thing for you to take your anger out on me but thoses nurses were just doing their job." I tried telling him that the nurses didn't do anything wrong but he wouldn't get past anything other than saying they were idiots. I remember countless nights in my bedroom closet giving myself 5 minutes to break down, wish I was dead, thinking I should be dead before sucking it all back in and going back out there to my children. I remember one day he had me feeling so worthless after a fight that I can't even recall the what for that I took to my son's room since he was at my ex's house and I laid there all day sinking into my depression until Wade came in to tell me that it was time to suck it up essentially and lets go figure out supper. The night I had a panic attack on the bathroom floor right after my shower. Suddenly, it was all too much. The dim lights in the bathroom, the water soaking my body, my skin, my hair; I couldn't stand any of it...I started clawing at myself, sobbing I sank to the floor...unable to die, unable to live. The night that scared the daylights out of me and still I stayed a couple of months after that was I had come into the bedroom, he was arguing with me about God only knows what, the room was dimly lit, the TV off and I got up close to him to try to reason with him, I sat on the bed next to him and as I looked into his eyes for just a split second both eyes turned completely black. I said something to quickly agree with him and end the argument and practically ran out of the room. I went outside after that; quickened breath, heart racing, what in God's name had I just witnessed? This was a whole new ballgame...I thought we were just dealing with addiction. What on Earth was this or was it Earth at all? I was shaking when I laid in the bed next to him that night and the nights after that. Before I entered the room, I prayed for protection from The Most High and that I may not absorb any negative energy that may be in that bedroom. The next morning at work, I googled what could cause a person's eyes to turn black and a couple of things popped up....demon possession, narcissism. I was married to a narcissist and an addict.
By Lindsey Altom2 years ago in Chapters
How Things Went From Wonderful to Terrifying.... Content Warning.
In 2019, my ex and I had child support court so we could adjust for the fact that Rayne was no longer legally my ex's child and afterwards my ex asked if I wanted to go eat lunch on his dime as a way to say "No hard feelings and let's work together from here on out." so I did. This small thing, almost cost me my marriage to Wade. It caused the biggest fight we'd ever had as I was told I knew better than to do something like that. It was common knowledge between myself and Wade that he didn't believe that women and men could be just "friends". However, Wade had work friends that were women and that was okay because they worked together. I was asked if my ex and I had held hands on our way into the restaurant, was told repeatedly that if me and my ex loved each other that much we should just be together already and quit skirting around behind his back and my ex's wife's back, was spoken to as if I were no more than a common slut. All because I accepted an invitation to lunch...I tried to reason with Wade by telling him I wouldn't think anything of it if he and his ex wife went to lunch after court, that I had done it because I figured my ex owed me a lunch, that it literally meant nothing. He found out that I had asked my grandma whose house I was going to after court if she thought it was weird for me to be going to lunch with my ex and he said that was proof that I had a guilty conscious. I told him I was simply trying to check and see that it wasn't inappropriate because I didn't want to disrespect Wade. Wade literally didn't speak to me for days over this incident and when he did it was to let know how badly I'd messed up. I begged, I pleaded, I went to his work to plead my case and he yelled at me for going there because he said I had no right to go his place of business and disrupt his work day with my bullshit. I asked if he was going to leave me and he said he didn't know. After a few days when he'd had time to settle down he claimed he never said that and he knew that I wouldn't do anything to purposefully hurt him. During this whole ordeal, I had started a new job as a legal secretary and I was stressed to the max with worry on if I was going to lose my husband or not and since I never had any experience with anything "legal" I had no clue what I was doing and was stressing on if I'd made the right choice. I got to discuss none of this with Wade because he was not speaking with me. He never really asked anything about my new job other than "Do you like it?" It was the worst first day of a job in my life. However, this job turned out to be a God send in the end and I'm still there almost four years later. My grandmother told me after I told her that Wade said he wanted to stay with me that I had a choice to make too on whether or not I wanted to stay with him. My mind started to spin on the implications of that and what all that meant and could mean. I was letting him run the show and he had spoken to me rather awful during all that but ultimately I decided to let it go and give Wade another chance. It certainly wouldn't be his last. Time went on, my eyes started to open more and more to his abuse and his abuse of substances and alcohol. I still didn't leave. I thought we can fix this or maybe if I just ignore this, it'll eventually just get better. In 2020, there was an incident with my past traumas that triggered my depression and on top of what I was already dealing with I found I could no longer live with myself and no longer wanted to. I couldn't just leave my children to fend for themselves so I sought therapy. My therapist started to help me come out of the deep dark hole that I had fallen into and eventually I confessed to her that I was the wife of an alcoholic/drug addict and it was taking it's tole. Wade's drug of choice was alcohol and pills but he eventually started smoking weed as well which he had at one point told me he didn't like and then he got into harder things some of which I knew about and some I did not. Our lives got dark, very dark....Wade drank, took pills, smoked, raged, yelled, took his anger out on me and the children. He never hit us except with his words and those words could cut like a knife. I did not agree with how he punished the children as he would get angry and just go off. He would yell and rage, call the children names, berate and belittle them, tell them to suck it up, stop crying...etc. I started attending Al-Anon classes online and those helped me release some of the control I'd been trying to take back and realize that only Wade could fix Wade's problems. I could not fix them for him. I started discussing with Wade having demons in your closet and how we all have demons and how only we have the power with God's help to exorcise our own demons. By going to Al-Anon I was able to find some peace. I started researching things. Wade still wouldn't tell me much about his childhood but I used what little I had to go on plus his personality traits I'd observed and his addiction problems and started researching the psychology of everything that could have happened to him based on what I thought had happened in his past and what could be going on with his brain due to the addiction. I started seeking help from anyone I could find and watching videos from people who had been there and done that before me. In other words, I got smarter. I learned about boundaries in order to keep your sanity and establish some self worth in your own self and in order to help the addict take responsibility and own up to the damage they have caused in the wake of their addiction. Wade didn't like this one little bit and we fought more and more. In 2021, we went on our first week long vacation. Wade chose to hang out with NJ & LJ downstairs every night we were there and smoke and party and then he complained that we didn't make love the whole vacation. However, he literally didn't come to our bed until around 2 or 3 in the morning. Also, there was one morning where we were suppose to go to an attraction together as a family. He told me he couldn't go because he had a hangover. He knew I have driving anxiety about driving in big cities but he told me that I would have to take myself and the kids to the attraction or we couldn't go. I put on a brave face and dug deep and instead of disappointing the children I drove us to the attraction. The whole vacation we had to leave places when he was ready and stay at our cabin when he wasn't ready to go anywhere. The whole vacation revolved around Wade and what he felt like doing. I thought then, "This will be and is our first and last vacation." In November of 2021, we moved in with my father. That was the first time I left him.
By Lindsey Altom2 years ago in Chapters
How Things Went From Wonderful to Terrifying.... Content Warning.
My first few years living with Wade were not all awful of course because that is how I got blinded and eventually silenced unbeknownst to me at first. Each and every day was a different day and I learned over the years to watch Wade's body language and to pick up little hints and signs based off what was happening in our lives as to when I could and could not tell him something or what I could and could not say. I knew better and the children knew better than to bother dad right after he woke up as he required at least thirty minutes to an hour before you were allowed to ask any questions or request anything for the day from him. I mean most everyone is a little grumpy when they first wake up but Wade would simply start yelling at you if asked the wrong thing at the wrong time. After that though things were good. At first, Wade helped me around the house and made all the boys listen to me and we all worked together as a team. He told them to respect me because I was their mother/step mother. Wade knew that my love language is acts of service so he would help around the house as much as possible and he doted on my daughter all the time. He was so enthralled with her but he wouldn't take her anywhere with him alone until she was older perhaps around 4 because he always said he wouldn't be able to take care of a baby while out running errands. This always irritated me because I mean I took care of her while doing virtually everything everyday but he always made the excuse that he wasn't good with little kids by himself and he'd told me this from the start so I had no right to be mad. In the very beginning, it started being obvious that although I had a job I could tell that he liked me being home to take care of the house and the kids. I explained to him several times that for one being home all the time made me depressed and that I was a better mother with a job and also that we simply couldn't afford it. I did keep a job throughout our marriage but it always seemed to be something that caused a chip on his shoulder. At first, it seemed he didn't even like me going to hang out with family or friends but I made it clear that I would be going to see my family at least every other week as we had a standing meeting at my grandma's every other Saturday and I was and am very close with my father. He finally gave in a little concerning this but there was a time where I literally went 2 years not speaking to my two very best friends, my sisters because of various reasons but now I can see that one was because he wanted me isolated. I was to care for him, NJ, LJ, AJ and Rayne all day everyday and never focus on anyone else. Although, when we were out and about at a retail store or somewhere he'd always tell me that I never bought anything for myself and I should get something for myself, I always thought of everyone but me, I was so selfless... He was also always sure to tell me everyday that he loved me and that I was beautiful. He loved Rayne so much that he called her his daughter, said that since he had come along while I was still pregnant it was almost like he'd had a hand in helping "make" her and he felt like she was his. He even teared up when he came to see her for the first time after her birth. He even adopted her in 2018 although we both agreed that was the best thing to do we felt and at first Wade seemed excited to adopt Rayne when it came time to he did seem to drag his feet a bit. I wanted to get it done before she went to school so she would learn the right name to write down and although initially it had been his idea as much as mine for him to adopt her suddenly it seemed like "Well, what's the hurry?" but he did go through with it anyway. I now of course regret this decision but you live and you learn. My little Rayne was very sick during the first six months or so of her life and honestly she didn't have a good immune system for the first couple of years of her life and Wade was always supportive of all the time I had to take off work to be with her. However, he never wanted to take off time from his job to stay with her. He claimed it was because he made more so it made more sense for us to lose time from my job where I made less versus his where we could lose potentially more money from him not being there. Anytime I got upset about something or claimed something was unfair I was always told I was just being emotional or not looking at things from his perspective. I was dramatic and although he didn't say it you could tell that every time I cried he found it distasteful and unnecessary. He sometimes would even roll his eyes and say, "Again?" It got to where he did this with my daughter Rayne as well because as it turned out she was quite "emotional" too just like her mother. It became clear after a few years that I was there mostly to be a good wife and raise the children and that was my main purpose according to him. The boys NJ, LJ and I took time forming our bond as they were quite different from my son AJ as far as personality goes but eventually I grew to love those boys as my own. How could I not? Those boys had a rough childhood and it was just the beginning unfortunately. They had seen their mother with different men cheating on their father from what I'd been told, they'd been exposed to all their father's different girlfriends and apparently the party scene quite a bit. Granted, my father had had a few different girlfriends while I was growing up as well but if Wade was moving in with different ones that wasn't stable for the boys and these boys were clingy and wanting affection when I first came into the picture. They needed some TLC and in a bad way. They wanted and craved stability. NJ was such a sweet, good hearted loving child who loved to make people laugh and that boy loved and still does his dad. He has always idolized his dad and that was very obvious from the start. LJ was a rough and roughty child who liked to break everything in his path just to see how it worked. It wasn't that he was a bad child by any means, in fact LJ is one of the sweetest children you'll ever meet but he had no respect for other people's things. I'm not sure if that's because no one ever respected him and his things but because of this behavior it made our bond a little slow to come by but his sweet and caring nature eventually won me over. Not to mention, when Wade and myself got together LJ wanted to go with me everywhere I went. If I was going to my grandma's he came too, the gas station, he hopped in the car. It didn't matter where, LJ was coming with me. I took to calling him my little buddy. Over time, all this turned darker as did everything. NJ started ratting out anything he found to be unacceptable said by myself or my son AJ to Wade and we would literally get into trouble. It would stir up drama and fights within the family. I would get angry that NJ was doing this and Wade would get mad at AJ or myself for whatever lies or twisted words were said about us. It was Wade and his boys against myself and AJ. Wade was constantly trying to get AJ into trouble. I remember a couple of different occasions for reference. Once, Wade wanted AJ to get punished because he said he found my ex's name scribbled on the bathroom wall. His theory was who else in the house would do that? I now, looking back, think Wade did that to set AJ up. I don't remember fully but I don't believe I punished AJ for this but I did question him and I thought at the time that maybe he just missed his dad and that's why he did it. It never occurred to me that Wade would lie about something like that. Second occurrence, I was laying in bed one night and Wade came in there and said that AJ was "throwing ice all over the floor in the kitchen". Now, my son is like his dad and loves to eat just shaved ice so I told Wade that it was probably just accidental and he was making shaved ice and would pick it up when he got done. However, Wade insisted that "No, he's literally taking ice out of the ice bin and throwing it on the floor." Confused as to why he would do that I went and asked AJ about it and he claimed that no, he wasn't doing that. I looked and there was no ice on the floor except maybe one or two pieces. I told AJ to get those when he got done and went back to bed. It was always something like that. It was like Wade was out to get AJ and the only reason I could figure was because of Wade's insane jealousy for my ex and the fact that AJ acted so much like his dad. Wade mocked my ex constantly and even in front of AJ which made him very upset and he would get his boys to join in on the mockery. I will admit that I joined in occasionally but not to the extent that Wade went to and I do regret my part in that now as I see how it affected my son. That was not fair and I realize it was a way for Wade to demean my son and his father. LJ eventually started believing his father's lies somewhat and lost any respect he had for me. He wouldn't listen and neither did NJ to a thing I told them to do. They both argued constantly and LJ took to destroying mine and my son AJ's things or stealing them behind our backs and then lying about it. They never once got punished for the lying or the stealing as it "couldn't be proven." LJ would steal things from my son and take the items to his mother's house so seemingly it had just gotten misplaced or disappeared. At one point, since Wade preferred to work nights it was my job to get the children up and to school in the morning because they were all living with us full time and NJ was having trouble getting up in the mornings. He made us all late a few mornings in a row and one in particular he claimed that he couldn't go to school because he didn't have any clean clothes. By this point, he was a teenager and responsible for washing his own clothes which he knew. He'd gotten up too late to take his shower which he insisted he take only in the mornings and he was mad at me because I had told him to just get some clothes on and come on. I told him to call his dad since he was trying to get out of school even though Wade was at work I felt this was something Wade needed to be called in on since he was giving me such trouble and arguing so much. Wade got angry with me because I'd told NJ to call him at work and literally asked him, "And why are you calling me about this? While I'm at work?" To which NJ replied, " Because she told me to call." as if I was the biggest idiot on the planet. Wade was ultimately just a big bully and even admitted to me that he had been that in school but that he'd changed his ways. It took me so long, too long to realize that he really hadn't changed at all. I'd say around the year 2019 to 2020 is when things really started to change for me and my eyes started to open. That's when the abuse picked up. The more awake I became, the angrier he got.
By Lindsey Altom2 years ago in Chapters
How Things Went From Wonderful to Terrifying.... Content Warning.
In October of 2014 my daughter was born and Wade immediately took over as her father. My ex husband was sort of in and out of his son's life at first and it took the first couple of years after the divorce for him to really get it together so to speak and establish a solid routine with his son. By this time, Wade and myself had married and he had well established himself as my daughter Rayne's father. To back up a little, we married in April of 2015 just 8 short months after initially starting to date. There was pressure from Wade to marry and my family as my family is very conservative Christians and thought it best if we were to live together we needed to be married. In all honesty, I was not ready and I knew then that I was not ready for another marriage but with the pressure from my family and Wade who would even say things along the lines of "Baby, you better put a ring on it." making a reference to the song Single Ladies by Beyoncé. He was joking when he said it but he was also not joking and you could tell that. He proposed to me in November of 2014 which also incidentally was the same month in which my wedding anniversary had been with my first husband. He did so in my grandma's kitchen in front of my grandma so I felt pressured to say yes. I felt I had no choice to take things slow, it was either marry him or lose my house and him. I didn't like either of those choices really but I chose the one that seemed less scary at the time. I knew that I wanted to marry Wade probably, one day, I just wasn't quite ready then but what was the difference between then and a few months and/or a year down the road right? By the time we wed there were already cracks in our foundation but I chose not to see them. He constantly was jealous and told me that I brought up my past too much with my ex husband and that he was afraid I'd never love him as much as I'd loved my ex. Because of this jealousy which I didn't even realize was full on jealousy at the time, I soon became not allowed to speak of my ex in his presence. If I did, it was met with a death glare and very judging eyes. I would be told that I compared everything he did to my ex and that that was not fair to him. I'm not saying that this didn't occur on occasion I'm just simply stating what I lived through all the time, no matter the situation. Also, he did speak of his ex and brought things he'd lived through with her into our relationship frequently. There are certain things I cannot remember and certain things I can and there are things that no longer have a timeline in my mind's eye but simply a tainted memory of things lived through and things learned so I apologize if this comes as a bit scattered at times. I remember when we first got together and started fighting although it did take a few weeks for this to happen that I would have to go to the bathroom to get away from him. I remember I told my co-worker Sue this and she asked if I was okay? I remember thinking "Well, yeah, why wouldn't I be? Wait, should I be worried?". I told her I was fine that he just got a little insistent when arguing and didn't like to let things go so I had to separate myself. Also, there was the other time a local customer who knew of Wade warned me that he had a "temper" and to "be careful". I chalked it up to him just being nosey and it being a small town. I do remember bringing this incident with the customer up to Wade though and I asked Wade what the customer could have meant by that and Wade turned the question around on me by asking me "Well, what do you think he meant?" We then just laughed it off as a nosey customer. Speaking on the jealousy again, I remember one time I was texting back and forth between my granny and my daddy and I had left my phone on the charger on the seat of his truck to go inside for a minute and there was one or two things that they had said which he glanced at my phone and thought he saw, I honestly can't even remember what it was but it got Wade to thinking I was cheating on him and demanded I let him see my phone when I got back outside. I did but he thought I had deleted the message by then and didn't believe me. Also, once, we had just gotten through making love and I noticed that I had a text from a male customer of mine that had been trying to help me get a job. I went to see what the text was and to text him back and Wade went crazy on me saying that I was being disrespectful to him since we had just made love and I tried to explain that it was job related but he wouldn't hear it. To him, I was texting a potential lover right after making love to him and it was a slap in the face he said. So, hopefully all this gives you some context and I'll try to get back to the storyline now. Wade had a problem with addiction to cover up what had happened in his childhood. He used work as a coverup as he was and is still I'm sure a workaholic, he drank too much, he used pills and other substances. When we first got together, Wade told me that he had had a horrible car accident in his early 20's which caused him to have severe back troubles and shortly after that he got hooked on prescription pain medication. He told me that he was off those finally from his own free will because he looked at his boys one day and realized he wanted better for them. So, he told me that's why he drank some to help ebb that addiction. I thought that was so amazing that he could just stop the pills cold turkey like that for his boys. I truly admired him for that. What it took me a few years to realize was that he still was battling addiction just using a different poison....
By Lindsey Altom2 years ago in Chapters
How Things Went From Wonderful to Terrifying.... Content Warning.
My divorce with my first husband was final in August 2014 and by the time I got the divorce papers in the mail I had already been dating Wade 2 weeks. I remember I was so happy to get that paperwork in the mail that my pregnant self ran across the yard to give Wade a hug and kiss when I got them. The paperwork meant that I was officially legally divorced and could be with Wade. I wish to God I had opened my eyes a little wider to see the red flags that were already looming over an overcast sky. The funny thing is that I thought I was keeping a good outsider's perspective. Everyone around me was just happy I was happy and Wade was a hard worker so he made enough money for me to be able to keep my house. It was convenient really because when I met Wade he told me he had just gotten out of an awful long term relationship where his ex girlfriend was crazy and then of course there was that brief fling with K from my work but he said that he and his boys were living with his mother and step father and he was about to be looking for another place to live anyway and since I was having trouble figuring out how to pay for my house it made perfect sense we both figured for him to move in permanently. Soon, the what should have been red flags started to emerge. Well, they already had had I known to see them or had I not been so blinded by his passion and attention that I somehow couldn't see them. As it turned out, Wade had a lot of crazy exes. His ex wife and mother to his boys and he used to have crazy knock down drag out fights that he hoped to never repeat. He said they would throw things at each other, yell, scream, punch walls, push each other, etc. She was crazy though and she couldn't keep her hands off the men. He was a truck driver for the most part that's how Wade made his living and he said when he was married to her he traveled across country and he would get calls that she had other men at their home. He described in detail to me how bad her sex addiction was and how it destroyed their marriage. Then, there was the last long term relationship he'd had shortly before me with Amy we'll call her. He said Amy was always trying to force marriage on him and even bought them wedding bands. He said that Amy lived with most of her family though and that her and her family was crazy. He said that they'd talk about crazy things and get drunk and high all the time and he got so tired of living that life. Wade said it got to a point where he and his boys were scared to stay there and one night while Amy was ranting and raving about something he got a few clothes for him and his boys and got them out of there. Because of this incident though, it left Wade with pretty much nothing to his name. They had no beds, no toys for the boys, no possessions except a few clothes. Also, to top it all off he said that Amy still wanted him and still asked people about him and what he was doing nowadays. It was crazy. Then, there was this other girl that was one of his exes named Jin and she worked at the Dollar store in town and I was told who she was and what she looked like because she wanted him back too and if she found out that he and I were together she would probably try to cause me trouble. He wanted me to know this he said so I could keep myself safe and be aware of these situations. Are you seeing the red flags yet? I wasn't. I just thought, "Wow, what a troubled past this poor man has had and what a string of crazy exes. Good grief. I don't want that drama and they won't be starting anything with me." There was one thing that Wade never opened up to me much about though and that was his childhood. He always told me that he would in due time but that time never really came. Sure, over the years and with some coaxing I managed to piece a few things together but what I knew for sure was that his biological father was a nightmare and Wade didn't want to be anything like him. He said that his step father who we'll call S had come into his life in his late pre-teen years and raised him to be a good man. He idolized S and thought I suppose that every boy needed that in his life. My son was six years old and was going through the worst time in his life what with his parents divorcing and now this new guy had moved in and yet Wade for some reason thought he needed saving and some structure I suppose. Wade's motto was always something along the lines of shit happens, stuff it in a box, shut up and get over it. It seemed everything my son AJ did was the wrong thing in Wade's eyes and he kept trying to set him straight. I was told every time I stuck up for AJ that I babied him too much and that I was favoring him over Wade's two boys. I tried hard to accept NJ and LJ as my own but with the situation with my son starting pretty much right off the bat I immedietly set up resentments. It was in fact, a recipe for disaster but at the time I told myself "Well, Wade isn't the only one that says I spoil AJ so maybe I do need to buckle down a little. Maybe there is a happy medium in this somewhere because other than the children and parenting disagreements Wade and I are great with each other." I tried still even though I knew deep down I was failing my son in certain ways to please not only Wade but my son. I wanted the best of both worlds. I wanted us all to be one big happy family and I just knew it was possible right?
By Lindsey Altom2 years ago in Chapters
How Things Went From Wonderful to Terrifying...
When I first met we'll call him Wade I was working at my uncle's grocery store, I was pregnant, I had a six year old son and was in the middle of a divorce from my highschool sweetheart. Wade was working for a local businessman who owned a couple of local business' around our small town and they came into the grocery store about everyday for lunch and to do business such as cashing checks for some of the local business man's employees. I was feeling lost in my life as you can imagine; I didn't know where to go from here. I had worked my ass off for years to finally own my own home as my previous husband had not been very consistent with keeping a job and I knew it would take more than what I made to be able to keep my home. I had another baby on the way and a six year old plus myself to feed and take care of and stressed and scared doesn't even begin to describe it. I had also felt lonely, unheard and misunderstood for so many years in my marriage that it had left me feeling desperate to see if better was out there. Wade started talking to one of my co-workers and they even went out on a date but it didn't go well and when he tried to come talk to her about it at the store that should've been my first red flag but I let my desperateness see past that incident. When Wade came to talk to her he cornered her in an aisle and wouldn't let her pass telling her that he just wanted to talk about the date and that she couldn't just avoid him. She was smart and said that she didn't want any part of that meaning his aggressiveness and abrasiveness and they didn't go out again. I waited a few weeks and let all that simmer down but I couldn't get something I had heard Wade tell my young co-worker when they were talking out of my head. He had said that he just wanted someone to settle down with, someone to love and that would love him back. I thought because my co-worker was young at the time "Well then you don't need a girl you need a woman and you need me." Although I also was petrified he would see me and run because I was pregnant with another man's child. So, after those few weeks and things simmering down I let the talk of my other co-worker we'll call Sue who was telling me things like "He's cute!", "You should grab him up! K(the other co-worker who'd went on a date with him) didn't want him so you need to get him." get to me. I looked into his beautiful blue eyes one day and let myself get lost in them. I asked K for his number and it was not long after that that we were texting back and forth and then the next day he and his boys came to visit. He had two sons from a previous marriage. One of his sons who we'll call LJ was the same age as my son and the other, we'll call NJ was nine. Things with Wade were very hot and very heavy very quickly. That first night we spoke on the phone and stayed on the phone most of the night; talking to each other, asking each other questions about our likes and dislikes and our family life. He agreed with most everything I said which now I see it for the red flag that it was, unfortunately at the time I just thought "This is great! How are we so much like each other!?" The next day we all met each other and let the kids play while we hung out and talked some more. By the end of that day, we had shared our first kiss and it wasn't just one. The next day which I believe was a Monday, Wade came to stay the night. It was a horrible decision on my part with having my six year old there but he consumed my every thought and made me feel like I was so special that I didn't want to be away from him. I felt at the time that God was answering my prayers since I knew that alone I would lose my house possibly and I was so worried about that. That night, Wade and I made love all night and the rest of that week followed much the same way. We'd get up in the morning on little to no sleep, go to work, come home, cook supper, eat with my son who we'll call AJ, get him his bath and homework done, put him to bed and then resume our love making sessions. It was some of the most passionate sex I'd ever had(granted I'd only ever been with my highschool sweetheart beforehand) but Wade was full of a fire and a passion I had never known. He was hungry and wild and passionate and so was I. If only I'd understood that part of that passion came from an anger burning deep inside that could not be tamed. A beast that would soon emerge....
By Lindsey Altom2 years ago in Chapters
